WFISD names its Teacher of Year

Elementary veteran's parking now reserved

Patrick Johnston/Times Record News
WFISD 2013 Teacher of the Year Lori Pitts (left) reacts after West Foundation Elementary Principal Kim Smith lets her know that a sign will now mark the spot that she had unofficially claimed as her own at the school.

Patrick Johnston/Times Record News
Wichita Falls Independent School District 2013 Teacher of the Year Lori Pitts (center) is greeted by West Foundation Elementary teachers and staff to congratulate her in the lobby of the Wellington Banquet Center Thursday afternoon.$RETURN$$RETURN$

Patrick Johnston/Times Record News
West Foundation Elementary Principal Kim Smith shows WFISD 2013 Teacher of the Year Lori Pitts (left) the sign that will now mark the spot that she had unofficially claimed as her own at the school.

If nothing else, winning the title of Teacher of the Year for the Wichita Falls Independent School District will guarantee Lori Pitts one thing: a guaranteed parking spot behind West Foundation Elementary School.

The fourth-grade reading and social studies teacher received her new official "Reserved Parking" sign as a gift for her win Thursday from West Foundation Principal Kim Smith at the Teacher of the Year banquet.

It will be affixed to the one spot behind the school that Pitts unofficially claimed years ago.

Pitts also won $2,000 from the Times Record News, an annual donation from the newspaper presented by TRN Editor-in-Chief Deanna Watson.

"I can't take any credit," Pitts told her 37 fellow nominees and their spouses as the shock of her win settled in. "I have such an awesome God, and I have such awesome people to work with who support me 100 percent. I can't thank you all enough."

Second runner-up Shelley Yeakley from Cunningham and third-runner-up Ronda Davis from Franklin took home $300 prizes presented by Tom McGough from the WFISD Foundation.

Pitts — whose fellow teachers call her Pitts, not Mrs. Pitts or Lori — began teaching in 1992 at Sheppard AFB Elementary. She moved to West Foundation when it opened in 1996.

Fellow teachers call her a "founding mother" at the school — their source for any historical information about the building.

Pitts brings an enthusiasm and happiness to the West Foundation hallways that her principal said she counts on every morning as they greet children.

"I can hear her," Smith said when they man the hallways in the morning. "She'll say, ‘Good morning! How are you today?' "

Her enthusiasm brightens the children's days, she said.

"She always makes the kids think she is having a great day, no matter what," Smith said. "I know she has her bad days. But she makes each day a gift and the best day it can possibly be."

Pitts said her 20-year teaching career has planted 22 gifts into her classroom every year that automatically become part of her family.

But not every year has been easy, she said.

One year she even returned to then-Principal Carol English a plastic apple that English had given to her teachers when the school opened, saying she didn't feel she was earning it that year.

"I didn't feel I was good enough for the kids I had that year," Pitts said.

Several fellow teachers gave her their plastic apples that year as a show of support, she said.

To help her, English suggested moving Pitts from fourth-grade to a self-contained third-grade class for the next year.

"It was the best thing," Pitts said. "It was a change of pace that gave me a new, fresh outlook."

Pitts pointed to a red plastic apple sitting on her Teacher of the Year program at Thursday's banquet. "Carol came tonight. She said, ‘You carry this apple on with you as I retire.' "

Pitts and her husband, Bill, have two children: Michael, 19, and Tessa, 4.

Pitts orchestrates her school's spelling bee, has been an IDEA Grant winner, serves on the district's curriculum committee, volunteers at her church and often participates in the Meals on Wheels program.

But teaching and investing in the lives of the children is her passion, she said.

"Come August every year, I get a whole new set of gifts," Pitts said of the children in her classroom. "I tell them, ‘You'll always be my babies.' "